The federal government figures reveal a 64% year-on-year decrease in new study permits issued in 2025, as Canada invited less newbie international students than during the pandemic and the lowest overall over the previous years.
According to IRCC information obtained by BorderPass, Canada approved approximately 73,800 brand-new students in 2025 — simply 25% of its specified target of 305,900– damaging institutions whose recruitment methods were based upon these aims.
” [Those] that plan around the heading figures will regularly be captured short,” BorderPass vice president of sales and partnerships Jonathan Sherman told The PIE News.“The ones that win in 2026 will be those constructing recruitment techniques around the practical new-student pipeline, not the combined number,” he stated.
Considerably, study authorization extensions accounted for 73% of post-secondary approvals in 2015, according to ApplyBoard, with specialists recommending this might have put pressure on brand-new student applications.
“As the number of extensions grows, the proportion of the cap left for new applicants diminishes,” ApplyBoard CEO Meti Basiri told The PIE News, with the proportion of onshore trainees extending their time in Canada growing considerably in the last few years.
In addition, Basiri stated it was most likely that visa rejection reasons from the previous year continued to shape decision-making, with over 3 quarters of rejections in 2024 due to visa officers not being convinced that candidates would leave Canada after their research studies, and over half citing a lack of financial possessions.
Source: ApplyBoard, Data: IRCC Elsewhere, the figures exposed vast worldwide disparities throughout sending nations, as India’s approval rating for new arrivals fell from 69% in 2024 to 25-27% in 2015 (with small data variations depending on when it was pulled by IRCC).
However India’s decrease was not felt evenly throughout organizations, with Indian university applicants authorized at 33% compared to college candidates approved at 14%– a space showing a “constant IRCC preference for program level that appears throughout every major source country”, stated Sherman.
“Colleges that buy application quality and student profile-building before submission, instead of depending on volume, are much better positioned to close that space,” he recommended.
And while Indian trainees make up the largest international trainee accomplice in Canada, 2025 saw more brand-new research study allows approved for Chinese students, driven by a much greater approval rating of 75%.
Together With India, Nigeria and Iran stuck out for their similarly low approval rates of 20% and 25% respectively, while other leading markets including France, the US and South Korea saw applicants approved at 94-96%.
On top of nationwide variations, Sherman said provincial difference in approval rates was “among the most under-communicated data points in the sector” and a “simple recruitment lever that most institutions are leaving unused”.
For instance, approval rates for Nigerian applicants were just 15% in Ontario last year, versus 37% in Alberta — information points that could offer organizations a “meaningful edge” when talking to representatives and prospective trainees, said Sherman.
Provincial variation in approval rates is among the most under-communicated information points in the sector
Jonathan Sherman, BorderPass
Amidst the significant declines, institutions are set to deal with increased federal government examination moving forward and will be needed to show “end-to-end responsibility, from candidate screening through to enrolment reporting and graduate results”, Sherman explained.
This comes after Canada’s Auditor General just recently found that 50 DLIs failed to file enrolment reports in 2025 with no repercussions, with the government since signalling that it will start suspending non-compliant institutions for as much as one year.
Sherman stated the stricter policies would “reward preparation, not reaction” which “schools with robust procedures already in location will find the new environment more accessible than those scrambling to develop them under pressure”.
Meanwhile, as policy volatility and declining numbers have actually harmed institutions’ financial preparation and dominated Canadian headlines, they have substantially dampened Canada’s appearance as a study location, with student demand dropping by 55% in 2015.
At the very same time, trainees’ perception of whether a nation is welcoming to worldwide trainees is ending up being significantly essential, according to a current ApplyBoard survey, which saw the number of trainee consultants citing it as a priority for trainees doubling on the previous year.
To this end, Basiri said it was “crucial” that organisations across Canada worked together to restore the country’s credibility “as a destination that welcomes the innovative and entrepreneurial energy that worldwide students bring to Canadian campuses”.
He said he was “deeply worried” by the drop in new student arrivals which “dangers weakening the long-lasting health of Canada’s talent pipeline”– crucial for dealing with labour shortages brought on by Canada’s ageing labor force.
But he highlighted the current favorable development from IRCC simplifying co-op work allow rules and advised institutions to buy better pre-screening tools, promote programs lined up with in-demand fields and prioritise more powerful visa applications.
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